Insulin: Safety
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what guidance his Department provides to integrated care boards on supporting vulnerable people, including those with mental health conditions, cognitive impairment or learning disabilities, to safely self-administer insulin.
Answered by Karin Smyth
Improving the integration between community mental health services and other physical health services and meeting the holistic needs of people with severe mental health problems is a priority, as set out in the Community Mental Health Framework.
Recognising the continued need to further support services to provide high quality personalised care for all patients needing secondary mental health services, including those with diabetes, NHS England has shared new draft guidance with systems, the Mental Health Personalised Care Framework, which sets out how services must effectively assess, plan, and manage people's care in collaboration with all relevant teams, including how they assess safety and risks of harm.
The Health Services Safety Investigation Body recently published a report Insulin: supporting safe self-administration for patients in the community with a mental health problem, which recommended that NHS England and the Department develop a strategy for improving collaboration between mental health teams and specialist diabetes services. A formal response to this recommendation will be published in May 2026.
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